Signs?

BRITISH HISTORIAN CLAIMS TO HAVE FOUND THE TEMPLE TREASURES
By Gil Zohar

What happened to the 50 tons of gold, silver and sacred treasures
looted from Herod's Temple following the Roman legionnaires' sack of
Jerusalem on Tisha b'Av in the year 70 CE?

The Arch of Titus in Rome, erected shortly after the death of Titus
who reigned as emperor from 79 to 81, clearly depicts Roman soldiers
bearing on their shoulders the golden candelabrum, silver trumpets and
bejewelled Table of the Divine Presence which the Roman emperor
Vespasian and his son Titus carted back to Rome as trophies of war.
Between 75 CE and the early 5th century, the treasure remained on
public display in the Temple of Peace in Rome's Forum. Many Jews
believe – almost as an article of faith – that the Temple artifacts
remain there in Rome, secreted away in vaults beneath the Vatican.

But in a newly published book, British historian Sean Kingsley, basing
himself on untapped historical texts and new archaeological sources,
argues that the treasures were removed from Rome after the Vandal
invasion of 455 CE.

Kingsley, whose book God's Gold: The Quest for the Lost Temple
Treasure of Jerusalem was released October 5 by John Murray, says that
the loot was first taken to Carthage in Tunisia, then to Hippo Regius
in Algeria, and on to Constantinople – today known as Istanbul,
Turkey, before finally being returned to the Holy Land in the mid 6th
century. At that time, the treasures were ultimately hidden in the
Judean wilderness, beneath the remote Greek Orthodox Monastery of St.
Theodosius, 12 km east of Bethlehem.

It's a plausible argument that has almost messianic implications. If
the Temple treasures were retrieved, the discovery could help lead to
the actual rebuilding of the Temple, the resumption of biblical
sacrifice – and the coming of the Messiah.

"One thing is for sure – it is not imprisoned deep in Vatican City. I
am the first person to prove that the Temple treasures no longer
languish in Rome," says Kingsley, an expert on the East Mediterranean
economy in Late Antiquity.

Kingsley's sources include Josephus Flavius, the 1st-century Jewish
general turned renegade who chronicled the history of the failed
Jewish revolt against Rome. Kingsley also found evidence in, among
others, the works of Procopius, a court historian of the Byzantine
Emperor Justinian, who died in 562, and from Theophanes Confessor
(c.760-817), a Christian monk from Constantinople.

In Chronographia, which spanned 284 to 813, Theophanes recorded that
Geiseric the Lame, king of the Germanic tribe of the Vandals, loaded
the treasures that "Titus had brought to Rome after the capture of
Jerusalem" on a boat and took them to his North African capital
Carthage in 455. Although history remembers the Vandal sack of Rome as
extremely brutal (and their act made the word 'vandalism' a term for
any wantonly destructive act), in actuality Geiseric honored his
pledge to Pope Leo I not to make war on the people of Rome. The
Vandals did however take gold, silver and many other things of value
away from the city.

In the crusade of 533 to restore the lost Roman provinces of North
Africa, the Byzantine general Flavius Belisarius seized the treasure
from a Vandal ship fleeing the harbor of Hippo Regius, today known as
Annaba or Bone, Algeria. It was then shipped to Constantinople, the
capital of Byzantium. In recognition of Belisarius' great victory, the
Emperor Justinian granted him a Roman triumph (the last one ever
given) upon his return to Constantinople. In the procession were
paraded the spoils of the Temple of Jerusalem which Belisarius had
recovered.

In the 7th century, the Persians sacked Jerusalem, killing thousands
of Christians, and dragging the Patriarch Zacharias to Persia.
Kingsley believes that his replacement, Modestus, spirited away the
treasures to their final hiding place in the Judean Desert in 614. The
Monastery of St. Theodosius, where Kingsley believes the relics may be
today, was founded in 476.

According to Kingsley, "The treasure resonates fiercely across modern
politics. Since the mid-1990s, a heated political wrangle has been
simmering between the Vatican and Israel, which has accused the papacy
of imprisoning the treasure.

"The Temple treasure remains a deadly political tool in the volatile
Arab-Israeli conflict centered on the Temple Mount [the site of the
Jewish Temple and the Muslim Dome of the Rock].

"The treasure's final hiding place - in the modern West Bank ... deep
in Hamas territory - will rock world religions."

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